


Parchment

by hannelore



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coercion, F/M, Fifteen Minute Fic, Underage Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-13
Updated: 2004-10-13
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:22:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannelore/pseuds/hannelore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginny still expects to see Tom's words appear in the parchment, long after he's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parchment

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt word was "chilling."

Ginny kept expecting to see his words coming out of the parchment.

For most of the year, Tom's words had been comforting to her. He listened to her secrets, he touched her. She felt that strange warm tingling go through her when she would pull the covers over her head, open the page and write, _Tom, are you there?_

The warmth spreading at his simple _Yes._

Tom was wonderful. When she started to forget, she blamed it on herself. The feathers and the blood on her robes. He consoled her, he said she would be all right. Sometimes she would dream herself doing such terrible things. She woke up and her fingers were sticky. Her heart hammering like that wind-up monkey banging his drum. She had found the Muggle toy in her Dad's garage when she was eight. When she'd touched it, the monkey had started banging, banging and she was so scared she screamed. Mum gave Dad a lecture that night, blaming him for the nightmares of a little girl.

Silly little girl. It wasn't the first time she'd woken with her fingers slick and they smelled not like something bad, but something different. She found she felt warm and relaxed when she woke up that way.

 _Do you like it when you wake up like that?_ Tom wrote. She admitted she did. She felt that way every time she couldn't remember something. But then the blocks of space got worse. She had tried to tell Harry, Harry could make it better, but then Percy had scared her off. She couldn't tell anyone but Tom.

Tom lured her. He brought her down into the terrible, cold Chamber and she'd cried, she’d begged. She wanted her Yes-Tom, she wanted her storytelling Tom. She wanted her secret Tom. But this cold boy was nothing of her Tom. When she woke, when she saw her diary, when she saw Harry, she knew Tom was gone. Everyone worried about Harry, blood-stained and confused Harry. Hermione and Ron were always beside him, they cared about him a lot.

They sent her to the hospital wing when she woke up screaming. They gave her a lot of Dreamless Sleep, but no one talked to her and no one explained. Mum and Dad pretended it hadn't happened. Nothing but the admonishment. She knew where Tom kept his brain, it was in his head. The same head that carved the words onto white parchment, white as her skin. _Good night, sweet Ginny._ She dreamed of her fingers being sticky, but now they were only sticky with blood. She couldn't bring herself to touch herself again. It had to be wrong, if Tom had told her to do it. Even though she had been so warm, so relaxed and so happy after it happened.

The parchment only had her writing and she felt very, very cold.


End file.
